Election Night 2010 Open Thread: LGBT edition

UPDATE @ 2:15 AM: Long night and I’m heading to bed. Of interest to LGBT voters are the outstanding Governor’s races in states where marriage or civil unions could pass: Maine, Minnesota and Illinois. There’s no victor in Florida, yet, either. And, there’s no winner yet in the Washington, Alaska or Colorado Senate races. In Alaska, the write-in candidate leads.

UPDATE @ 1:50 PM: Neil Abercrombie has won the Governor’s race in Hawaii. He’ll sign the civil unions bill, which the current Governor, Linda Lingle, vetoed. Abercrombie’s opponent in the Democratic primary and the general election both opposed the civil unions legislation, too.

UPDATE @ 1:24 AM: Well, it’s official: All three Iowa Supreme Court Justices lost their bids for retention. How did that happen?

UPDATE @ 12:31 AM: Harry Reid defeated Sharron Angle.

UPDATE @ 12:17 AM: Mark Kirk has been declared the winner of the Illinois Senate seat held by Barack Obama. Kirk, who voted against DADT repeal in May, will become Senator immediately, meaning he’ll serve in the lame duck.

UPDATE @ 12:03 AM: Independent Lincoln Chafee has been elected Governor of Rhode Island — and he supports marriage equality, which will be a welcome change from the current homophobic Governor.

UPDATE @ 11:56 PM: Just got an email from a friend in CT that an openly gay man was elected Comptroller. Check GayPolitics.com and it’s true: Kevin Lembo.

UPDATE @ 11:50 PM: The Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), an ardent opponent of repealing DADT, lost tonight. Not really feeling bad about that one.

“Tonight the House of Representatives and our country lost a bright, capable young leader. SLDN will forever remember and be grateful for Patrick’s remarkable leadership in the fight to repeal DADT, and I have no doubt Patrick Murphy will be back to serve this nation again. We appreciate his long and extraordinary service to our country.”

UPDATE @ 11:19 PM: We got some good news from California. Jerry Brown has been elected Governor and Barbara Boxer has been reelected to the U.S. Senate.

UPDATE @ 9:10 PM: More good news from New York: Andrew Cuomo was elected Governor tonight over homophobe Paladino. Cuomo is pro-marriage equality.

BREAKING @ 9:02 PM: MSNBC just predicted that the GOP will take control of the U.S. House. GOP will hold 237 seats to 198 for the Dems. We’ll be dealing with Speaker Boehner. Also, Senator Gillibrand, one of our few champions in the Senate, was reelected.

UPDATE @ 8:11 PM: Republican Marc Rubio wins in Florida.

UPDATE @ 8:08 PM: There is some good news from New Hampshire. Governor John Lynch, who signed the marriage bill into law last year, was reelected. NOM put money in this race to defeat Lynch. Another #NOMFAIL.

UPDATE @ 7:39 PM: So far, Republicans have won contested Senate seats in Kentucky with Rand Paul, Ohio with Rob Portman and Indiana with Dan Coats. Looking like Marco Rubio will prevail in Florida, but Manchin will probably hold West Virginia.

We’ve got an Election Night Open Thread going over at AMERICAblog.com to update the results. We’ll be posting updates here, too. Polls closed in Indiana and Kentucky at 6:00 PM and just voting just stopped in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia at 7:00 PM. At 7:30 PM, polls close in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. We’ll update this poll with actual results when races are called — and we’ll be monitoring LGBT races, too.

Kentucky’s second-largest city has elected an openly gay man as its next mayor. Vice-Mayor Jim Gray was victorious tonight in his second campaign for the city’s top job, beating incumbent Mayor Jim Newberry.

Joe Sudbay
On October 27, 2010, Joe was one of five bloggers who interviewed President Obama. Joe is a DC-based political consultant with over twenty-five years of experience at both the state and federal level. Joe has managed political operations and legislative efforts for both candidates and issues-based organizations. For seven years, he was the Director of State Legislation at Handgun Control, Inc. He served as that organization's first Political Director during the 2000 cycle. Joe is a graduate of the University of Maine School of Law. In addition, he has a Masters in Public Administration from Lehigh University and received his B.A. from the University of New Hampshire. Joe also has a fun dog, Petey, a worthy successor to Boomer, who got Joe through eight years of Bush and Cheney. Joe likes to think he is a world class athlete having finished the 2005 Chicago Marathon in the time of 4:10. He has completed six other marathons as well -- and is still determined to break the four hour mark.

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